


I fell, and it was the best thing in the world

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Road Trip, Up all night to get Bucky, but how much u wanna bet he has a special ~let's get it on~ playlist for when they do the do?, sam's playlist is pretty fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a lot of things you learn, living in Steve Rogers’ pockets for weeks on end, driving for endless hours, seeing nothing but road and sky most of the time. It’s strange knowing what brand of soap and deodorant he uses (Irish Spring and Old Spice); when you’ve worn his shirts because he got a call from Natasha at 3:39 in the morning with a lead and the both of you are too tired to bother with dressing in the right clothes; when you’ve seen him roll out from under the covers with bed-head and drool on his chin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I fell, and it was the best thing in the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exilefromlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exilefromlife/gifts).



> i had a lot of fun writing this, even though it was a mad last-minute scramble to get everything done. i wish i had worked on it longer, though, but i'm terrible at pacing myself :/  
> a gift for findyouranchorpoint.tumblr.com for the samsteve exchange.

Some days, Sam feels…inadequate. It’s not that hard when you’ve got Captain America, the paragon of virtue and America’s Golden Boy all up in your space for months.

There’s a lot of things you learn, living in Steve Rogers’ pockets for weeks on end, driving for endless hours, seeing nothing but road and sky most of the time. It’s strange knowing what brand of soap and deodorant he uses (Irish Spring and Old Spice); when you’ve worn his shirts because he got a call from Natasha at 3:39 in the morning with a lead and the both of you are too tired to bother with dressing in the right clothes; when you’ve seen him roll out from under the covers with bed-head and drool on his chin.

Steve Rogers double-knots his laces. Steve Rogers hates country music. Steve Rogers can draw.

Hell, Sam even knows how Steve takes his coffee (black, three sugars), that he loves salt on his food, that  _deep-dish pizza is just plain wrong, Sam!_

[ ](otterlings.tumblr.com)

Those are the good things.

But there are nights when Steve stands in the shower for hours and comes out with pink-rimmed eyes and a weak smile, fingertips wrinkled from staying the water too long. Sam pretends not to see it, and he feels like such a shitty person for doing that. But what’s he supposed to do? Hug him? Ask him to talk about his feelings? He’d tried, once. Steve had brushed him off with a barely-there smile and a “Don’t worry about it, Sam.”

Sam can’t bear seeing Steve so quietly  _shattered_  half the time and cheerfully upbeat the other half. 

There are mornings where Steve is raging snapping hot, fuming quietly into his mug, but never taking it out on Sam. He takes it out on himself instead; on the slow days, on the crawling molasses days where there are no leads, no footprints, no blood, Steve runs himself into the dirt, into oblivion, until he’s stumbling back to their rooms all weak legs and sore feet and his calves and shins are spotted with crusted mud.

Sam tries to keep a cheerful front. It’s not enough.

Sam wants to tell Steve to give it a rest. He wants to tell him that the Winter Soldier is skilled in hiding and leaving false trails and that if he was looking for Bucky Barnes, he won’t find him. He can’t, though. Because as much as Sam wants Steve to put himself first, this is something he understands is important to Steve.

The worst thing is? He knows that if he were in Steve’s place looking for Riley, he’d be doing the same. He loved Riley.

And Steve loves Bucky.

Here’s a list of all the people Steve loves.

1.       Peggy Carter, the founder of SHIELD and the light of Steve’s life 

2.       Bucky Barnes, his Great and Tragic Love Story

3\.       Natasha Romanoff, one of the few people Steve trusts wholeheartedly

Sam doesn’t know where he belongs on this list- if he even belongs on it in the first place. He’s not here to be Steve’s new Bucky, he knows that, deep in his bones and in his gut. But sometimes he feels like Steve forgets.

There’s a lot of things he can’t do, and being Bucky is one of them. 

Sam knows he’s the one who volunteered to join Steve on this cross-country game of tag, but it’s starting to feel more like hide-and-seek. You can’t chase someone if you can’t see ‘em, and if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that you can’t chase a ghost.

 

 _I wrote my mother, I wrote my father/And now I'm writing you too_ _/I'm sure of mother, I'm sure of father/And now I want to be sure, very, very sure of you_

Sam lies awake in bed, eyes closed, just listening to Steve’s rough tenor croon along to the Andrews Sisters.

It’s one of the good days, when Steve wakes up with the sun, banging pots and pans in the small kitchen, humming softly to an old jazz tune playing on one of the classics stations he found on the radio.

When Sam hears a yelp, he decides to get up, having lain in his nest of tangled bedsheets long enough to feel the urge to empty his bladder. He brushes his teeth in the dingy bathroom, and wanders into the cramped kitchen in his boxers, where Steve’s muscular frame is wedged in between the stove and the dividing wall.

Sam pokes his head into the tiny fridge to pull out the jug of orange juice they picked up the other day, and chugs down a mouthful. He glances up to see Steve watching with a mildly disapproving look on his face.

_Don't go walkin' down Lover's Lane with anyone else but me_

“What?” Sam defends, screwing the top back on the container, “It’s not like I’m sharing this with twenty other people. Besides, you’re the only other person in the world who can tolerate my backwash.”

There’s no answer from Steve, but he pulls a disgusted face before going back to poking at the sizzling eggs in the pan, a quirky little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, disrupting the symmetry of his visage. There’s a dozen in the pan, enough protein to sustain a supersoldier and his regular soldier sidekick.

Ahem. Partner.

“Salt and pepper?” Asks Steve, lifting the little shakers.

There’s a little scratch on the surface of the table, and Sam runs a thumbnail over it as he sits down, deepening it. “Mhmm.”

 _Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me_  
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me  
No, no, no, don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me  
Till I come marching home

_***_

_“_ You want the radio on?”

“Sure.”

He pokes at a button, and the radio crackles to life.

“…a family of four was involved in a car accident…youngest child hospitalized…critical condition…”

Steve clears his throat. His hands tighten on the steering wheel, the fine lines around his mouth tightening as they listen to the news report. “Switch it to something else please, Sam?”

“Yeah, no problem.” Even if Steve hadn’t asked him, he’d have done it anyway. They’ve experienced enough tragedies for a lifetime.

He lands on a music station.

“- _WLIX, 98.5, fresh new tunes daily…here’s what all the music-lovers are listening to today-“_

Upbeat pop pipes in from the speakers, catchy and bouncy-one of those new boy band groups that tweens like so much. Sam’s expecting his niece to start piping in from the backseat, high and off-key, twirling a springy lock of hair around a finger. But what he gets instead is this:

“ _You look so perfect standing there, in my Captain America underwear, and I know now, that somehow…”_

This makes everything a helluva lot better.

“Oh my _God_.” Oh wow.

A grin threatens to appear from behind Steve’s quivering lip. “Shut up.”

“Really, though?”

A car honks from behind, and Steve jumps a little in his seat, grumbling and muttering darkly under his breath about seniority and disrespect. Sam feels like laughing.

***

_“-and her date, seen entering her apartment last night! Could this be her new boyfriend? Or just a guy who happened to-“_

“Thanks,” Steve breathes, as Sam fiddles with the radio controls, eyes fixed on the road. “I was getting tired of listening to that.

“Keeping up with the Top 40 charts is fine,” Sam says while turning a dial, “but this dude’s voice is annoying the hell out of me.”

He pinches his nose and puts on an affected voice. “Here’s what all the cool, hip teens are listening to today!” Sam starts speaking normally again. “Seriously, how can someone’s voice sound so nasal and _Gollum_ -y at the same time?”

“By the way, we should stop at a gas station or something. We need to pick up an AUX cord. You need some musical education, old man.”

A laugh bursts from Steve’s mouth as he glances over, eyes crinkling in amusement.

“The Hobbit, right? Nat made me watch the extended box edition with her and called it the ‘mandatory Lord of the Rings marathon sleepover.’” Steve curls his fingers in air quotes, keeping one hand on the wheel. “She memorized the entire thing, swear to God. Was quoting it while we were watching the movies.”

“Honestly? Only thing I remember is-“

Steve joins in immediately with his Captain America voice.

“YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

“-oh man, one of the most badass lines from the movies, seriously.”

He nods in agreement, and flips on the turn signal. EXIT LEFT, reads a sign, .3 MI.

Sam doesn’t for the life of him know where they are. Everything west of the Mississippi looks exactly the same to him, all wide and flat, interspersed with small towns with populations no larger than 15,000, and telephone lines all around.

He remembers when they hit Iowa, though. Nobody could forget seeing that much corn in the span of 24 hours.

“We’re here.”

The two stumble out of the car and onto asphalt, awkward on their feet from spending too much time in a tiny, cramped space. Sam winces when he hears Steve crack his spine.

_“Gross.”_

They shove each other like nine-year olds as they walk to the 7-Eleven, Steve being careful with his serum-enhanced strength. There’s no AUX cord to be found in the store, much to Sam’s disappointment, but he recovers quickly, declaring a roadtrip feast, and spends fifteen minutes grabbing armfuls of chips, Gatorade, and candy. Steve looks over his shoulder and tuts at his selections.   

“That’s not healthy!” he protests, as Sam dumps everything onto the counter. He gets ignored for the favor of ordering two large Slurpees.

“Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve, my young grasshopper. You’ll understand once you try this. Here.”

Steve accepts the blue raspberry Slurpee and tentatively takes a sip, under Sam’s watchful eye.

“Well?”

“It’s…good.” He ventures, back to sucking on the straw. “It’s just ice and sugar though, isn’t it?”

Sam gasps in mock horror.

 

***

Two hours and three bags of chips (and two Slurpees) later, Sam, bored, starts rifling through the rental car’s glovebox.

“Mmmm, notepad, pen, gum wrapper-“ He gasps loudly.

“What? What is it?”

“An AUX cord! I can’t believe-“ Sam digs in his pocket for his phone and plugs it in. “-can’t believe I didn’t check the car! You’d better get ready for some iconic tunes, Rogers! This is Sam Wilson’s playlist of the century: everything you need to know packed into this mix right here.”

Sam taps at the phone screen. “Big band, jazz, swing, rock, boy bands, and pop. Rogers, you are in for a treat.”

The first song starts-- a lone trumpet, then a man’s rough voice.”

“Louis Armstrong!” Shouts Steve. “I remember this!” Like it was yesterday. “Ma would hum it all the time!” The year it had come out, he was twelve, just a small, towheaded boy running around in the Brooklyn streets with Bucky with a wheezing in his chest and pureness in his heart.

“Good, looks like you know something.”

Steve elbows Sam in the ribs. “Hey, I may have been born in 1917, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to any music at all! Louis Armstrong played on the radio all the time.”

“Sure, Gramps. Whatever you say.”

He shakes his head. “Kids these days.” Sam hums in acknowledgement, watching Steve’s fingers tap the wheel in time as the late afternoon light slants down into the car, highlighting the fine golden hairs on his forearms where his sleeves have been pushed up. His long eyelashes sweep the tops of his cheeks as he blinks against the glare, the crease in his brow deepening as he squints through the windshield at a sign. He's beautiful like this, all lit up from one side like an artfully placed statue, a magnum opus.

Sam’s ears start ringing, and something…something in his chest feels like it’s trying to escape through his throat.

Pulling his eyes away, Sam swallows, and searches the bags at his feet for a bottle of water, his mouth suddenly dry. He’s never denied his attraction for men- heck, he’d even dated a couple, but- Steve? Steve, who’s putting his life on hold to search for his best friend; good, honest Steve who stops running to pet dogs and walks the elderly across the street; who came to him for help after talking to Sam for less than an hour; Steve, who carries the shield and the stars and stripes.

Steve, who looks so much like his dead Riley.

“Sam?” Steve turns those blue eyes on him, face open and earnest. Fuck, he just- Sam blinks the blurriness from his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Where do you want to go for dinner?”

***

Later that night in a bathroom one of the nicer motels, Sam sits on the toilet and buries his head in his hands as Steve dresses for bed in the other room, just fifteen yards away.

He has- feelings for Steve. How had he not noticed before? Did he think the tightening in his chest was normal? He’s soaring on golden wings and free-falling without a parachute, all at the same time.

It’s like this with Riley: the wind in his ears, blistering sun, aerial maneuvers and fire.

It’s like this with Steve: the beating of his heart like the pounding of feet on the ground, no-longer-empty chairs, humming engines and broken bones.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. He can’t fly with no wings.

***

Here’s what happens.

Sam dreams. He dreams of Riley, and he dreams of Steve. Which one is worse- seeing his best friend fly again, or seeing Steve in Riley’s place as he fell, screaming.

“Sam? Sam!” Dimly, he hears the tail end of his yelling, Steve’s panicked voice calling to him. He jerks upright, blinking away tears in the pitch black room, Steve breathing softly in the next bed. The sheets rustle, and through the darkness, feels Steve approach.

“I’m fine.”

His words receive no response from Steve, just a nudge and a blast of cool air as the blanket is lifted and a warm body crawls in next to him. It’s nothing like sleeping with a girl, who’s all soft skin and curves. Steve is big and Sam can practically feel the heat coming off his skin.

“Is this okay?” No, no it’s not, he’s going to find out, and then he’ll know, and he’ll just look at Sam with those eyes and go ‘ _sorry, Sam, but I don’t think of you that way_.’

“Yeah.”

Minty breath brushes over Sam’s cheek as Steve settles in, facing Sam.He wishes he could see Steve’s face, see what he’s thinking, but his traitorous eyes are already drifting shut.

 

 

There’s a weight on Sam’s shoulder when he wakes up, a hand possessively gripping his hip, and a leg thrown over the tops of his. The details from last night come back to him, but he’s warm and sleepy, so he squirms deeper into the mess of sheets, uncaring of the body by his.

“Nnnngh.”

Steve cracks an eye open, bleary and dazed. Sam can make out a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth and his hair is completely messed up.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Steve beams at Sam, then blushes as he realizes that he’d become an octopus during the night.

He lifts his hand off Sam's hip, the heat instantly replaced by cooler air. “Oh- I’m sorry-“

“Don’t.”

He’s feeling bold all of a sudden, heart thumping away, pulse racing like a hummingbird’s.

“Stay.” Sam pauses, and adds “Please.” for good measure.

Steve’s eyes widen. “You- _oh,_ you-“

“ _Please.”_ Sam says again, though he doesn’t know why.

Here’s what happens.

Steve leans in, slow, like he’s reaching out to a frightened dog. A big warm hand cups Sam’s cheek, and soft lips press gently against his mouth, delicate and sweet. Steve watches him, pupils like black pools of ink, reflecting Sam's face back at him.

He closes his eyes and drags Steve in, licking into his mouth, morning breath be damned.

Gravity takes him.

**Author's Note:**

> me: *is trash*  
> i'm sorry i did this to you sam <3  
> [come yell at me on my tumblr](otterlings.tumblr.com)


End file.
